E-commerce, which generally refers to commercial activities online, is an area that is rapidly increasing in popularity as more and more customers purchase consumer items from Web sites rather the visit physical stores. There are several e-commerce Web sites that are devoted to commercial activities. For example, virtual stores such as Amazon™ have sophisticated Web sites that offer a wide variety of products for sale to consumers. Other Web sites provide more limited sets of specialty items and still others cater to business customers as opposed to general consumers. Some Web-based stores have physical world counterparts, but many do not. Irrespective of whether the Web-based stores sell to consumers or business or whether they are extensions of physical world stores or not, virtually all Web-based store owners have an interest in understanding who is visiting their Web site and what activities those visitors are engaged in during such visits.
This need for information regarding Web site visitors has spawned the industry of Web analytics. Broadly speaking, Web analytics may be regarded as the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data for purposes of understanding Web site usage. Such analytics are also used in connection with business and market research. Many Web hosting providers, such as Google™, Yahoo!™ and others, offer this kind of analytical information to their subscribers in connection with sites hosted for those subscribers. In particular, on-site Web analytics provide a Web site owner/operator with information regarding actual Web site visitor activities, but usually this is provided in the form of a compilation of historical information over various time periods/visits.
While somewhat useful, historical information provides only an after-the-fact view of visitor behaviors and has limited benefit for the Web site owner/operator. However, unlike real world physical stores, the Web site owner (or merchant) providing goods and services online cannot interact with customers in real time, and provide customer support to offer a personalized or customized shopping experience. While some online stores may have an online customer support chat feature, this requires the consumer to initiate a “call” with the merchant online, which is not much different than making a phone call to a customer support department via telephone. In these situations, the behind the phone, or behind the computer screen merchant has no information on the potential buyer, his browsing activity, or knowledge of who may be best suited to offer customer support to the buyer.
Also, a merchant of a real world store has the ability to monitor the traffic of his store at any hour and check the inventory as supply and demand for particular products increases or decreases. Traditional e-commerce Web sites do not provide the ability for merchants to monitor the trends, patterns or behavior of customers and react to customer demands and consumer trends in real-time.